Monday

Good morning,

Quote of the day:

The Nazis had occupied Paris for three and a half years. After the allied invasion on D-Day succeeded, the days of the German occupation of Paris were numbered. Eventually the German commander told Hitler that he thought the allies would be in Paris in two or three days and he could not stop them. Hitler ordered him to burn Paris to the ground. The commander, General von Choltitz, refused to give that order and said “I will not go down in history as destroying one of the the greatest cities in Europe.” I think this man that had spent three years in Paris and had fallen in love with “The City of Light”.

I hate to say this but the world must do what ever it takes stop the ISIS movement even if it means boots on the ground. If those lunatics get control of the oil fields in Iraq and Syria the world economy will be in immediate turmoil and they will be able to further finance their obscene rampage of terror. The largest acknowledged single pool of oil in the world is near Tikrit, Iraq. There are oil wells and refineries already in place there. There are probably larger pools in Russia or Siberia but it is not acknowledged. ISIS is invading Syria and Iraq to gain control of the hearts and minds of the people...and the oil.

Recently certain discoveries have made the history of mankind itself very foggy. For those that are unfamiliar, about 100 years ago a stone spear point was found near Clovis, New Mexico. This spear point had been finely shaped and was the oldest yet found on the North American continent. It was agreed that it was about 13,000 years old. This indicated to ethnologists that the native Americans, including those in Canada and Alaska, had ancestors that crossed over from Siberia during the last ice age. During this ice age there was so much of the oceans that were frozen, some of what is now relatively shallow seas were above water including the Bering Sea meaning there was dry land between Alaska and Siberia. There evidently was an area of ice free land along the western coast of Alaska and Canada and on down into what is now Washington and Oregon. It is assumed that those people followed this path and populated North America then Central and South America. This is somehow verified by the Clovis Point, as it is known.

Recently a scientist from MIT has found several stone spear points along the banks of the Chesapeake Bay. What makes this discovery significant is that the spear point was much better made than the Clovis Point meaning that there had been people living there longer than those in Clovis. How could this happen with the Arctic ice cap extending all the way down to northern Virginia? Where did these people come from? The scientist opined that people from northern Europe crossed over to Iceland, Greenland and then the vicinity of the Virginia coast in boats, following the face of the ice cap that was over a mile high at its peak time period. There would have been plenty of wildlife to keep them fed. Of course there is no documentation for this happening. But there is also no documentation of human settlements on western coasts of North America that extend that far back in history either. Now here is where the world gets really foggy. A recent discovery of drawings in a cave down in Brazil have been proven to be about 24,000 years old. Where did these people come from? They certainly did not come down from the Clovis people because they had been in existence for over 13,000 years before the Clovis people ever reached New Mexico.

Then there is the Kennewick man. About ten years ago the rising and falling of the Columbia river uncovered a skeleton near the town of Kenniwick, Washington. Paleontologist wanted the skeleton to determine what they could. The Native Americans sued because it was obvious that this skeleton existed before the white man ever arrived in that part of the world. They wanted to give the skeleton a ritual burial believing it was Native American. Science won that suit and were given the entire skeleton to find out what they could. After a lot of scientific examinations and test it was found that the Native Americans were wrong. Kenniwick man was found to be about 9,000 old and is clearly not of Mongolian ancestry but was East Asian...meaning from somewhere south of China and north of Australia. They found that his diet was heavily into marine life especially seals. He was about 5'-7” weighed about 160 lbs. He had suffered several broken ribs and a couple of skull fractures and died when he was about 47 years old. The cause of death is unknown but he had a spear point that was lodged in his hip and had been there for quite a while. His right arm was a lot more robust than his left and his right shoulder showed a lot of heavy use. This indicated that he used a spear or threw some sort of missile regularly. How did he get here? I do not believe he walked from Malaysia, for instance, across the width of China and Mongolia to cross the Bering Land Bridge. I think he got to the west coast by boat. It would not be that hard. Someone could sail northeast for thousands of miles an never be out of sight of land. Not only that they would eventually encounter the Japanese Current. This is a strong current in the Pacific ocean going from the vicinity of Japan to the American west coat via Alaska.

The oldest city in the world is Jericho but it was not continuously occupied. Damascus, Syria is the oldest continuously occupied city in the world. Jericho is about 7,500 years old. There were recently discoveries by archaeologists of two cities in central Turkey. Both of these cities were a hell of a lot more sophisticated than either Damascus or Jericho during the same time period. In fact both of these cities were at least 1,000 years older than Jericho. Who were these people and where did they come from and where did they go?

All of this tells us one thing...we don't know crap about where we came from or who we are.

     This Date in History   October 13

1976   Secretary Of Defense Robert McNamara went on his 8^th fact finding mission to South Vietnam. Bob visited with General Westmoreland, Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, South Vietnam Premier Ky and President Thieu and then went back to Washington to a press conference and with his bare face hanging out declares that the war is proceeding satisfactorily. Then he went to LBJ and secretly told him that we are in deep doodoo over there. LBJ got tired of McNamara’s vacillating and replaced him with Clark Clifford. He isn’t much better. That whole debacle was a disaster top to bottom from the git-go.

1792  The cornerstone of the White House is laid on this day. The Irish American architect James Hoban was hired to design the house and he used the Lienster House in Dublin as a model. The location for the house was made by George Washington and the first resident was President John Adams. The White House was burned by the British during the war of 1812 in retaliation for US guerillas burning the British Embassy in Canada but James Hoban was again hired to direct its restoration. The White House and the adjacent Lafayette Square are blocked off from vehicular traffic for security purposes. Over a million people a year visit the White House.

1943  26 year old poet Robert Lowell is given a one year jail term for refusing the draft because he is upset about the allies using “blanket bombing”. I wonder what Bob would have felt if he had seen what was going on at the German Auschwitz concentration camp. Anyway, Bob was born to privileged and wealthy parents and he received a good education. He wrote some very good essays and poems and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1959 for “Life Stories” which was an account of how he was dealing with his mental instabilities. In the early 60’s he read poet Allan Ginsberg’s “Howl” and was blown away by Ginsberg’s honesty and being down to earth. Bob was involved heavily in the opposition to the Vietnam War and was present at nearly all protest meetings/marches. Bob went to that great library in the sky in 1977.

1935  Doctor Buck Ruston is arrested for murder in Lancaster, England. The good doctor’s maid Mary Roberson and common law wife Isabella Van Ness had been missing for some time and an intense investigation had begun at the behest of the good doctor I guess to throw suspicion off him self. Investigate they did. A farmer in Scotland found several objects wrapped in newspaper on a river bank which turned out to be various body parts two of which was mutilated human heads from which all the teeth had been removed and the nose cut off one of them and had been disemboweled. All the fingertips on both had been removed also. Even though identification of the bodies was nearly impossible, Scotland Yard determined from the evidence the time of death and from the newspapers that they were issued in the good doctor’s home town. The searched the doctors home and found traces of human blood and human fat in the kitchen sink drain and therefore the doctor was tried and convicted of a double homicide. Just before going to the gallows the doctor stated that he had killed his wife in a quarrel and that the maid had walked in on him in the act and so he had to kill her too. Doctor Ruston went to meet his maker about 2 inches taller than he had been.

1845   Under the leadership of Sam Houston, the people of Texas approve a state constitution and ask that they be allowed to become a member of the United States. In 1836, again under the leadership of Sam Houston, the people of Texas had declared themselves independent of Mexico and became the Republic of Texas. The acceptance of Texas into the fold was delayed somewhat because it was to be a “slave” state and that was not palpable to some interests in the Northeastern US and Mexico had stated that if Texas became a state they would declare war on the US. Eventually Texas was admitted into the US and sure enough a war with Mexico ensued. It didn’t last long though.

Births and deaths:

1949  Rock start Sammy Hagar is born. Sammy once said “If Van Halen called me, I think I would puke”.

1959 Marie Osmond is born. Marie had seven brothers and no sisters. She and Donnie Osmond had a moderately successful TV career together.

1969 Ice skater Nancy Kerrigan is born. Nancy was famous for when one of Tonya Harding’s friends ran up to Nancy and popped her on the knee with a pipe so as to eliminate Nancy from the Olympic tryouts. Tonya believed that Nancy was her only competition and said so. Her friends took that as a request to stop Nancy from competing. It was proven that Tonya had no part of this attack. Tonya had dynamite legs, y'all.

1925 Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is born. She is known affectionately as “Iron Pants Maggie” for her hard nosed approach to problems. She is one of my favorite people. It was Maggie that said “If you have to keep telling people that you are a lady, then you aren’t one’.

1959 Stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce is born. Lenny told us “More and more people are straying from the church and getting back to God.”

1997 Movie actor Clifton Webb died. Clifton once said “Barbara Stanwick is my favorite American lesbian”. Clifton was brutal.

                  Thanks for listening   I can hardly wait until tomorrow